South & East Rail Group Notes on Meeting with "DfT/Treasury Friends"

[HSTEd]

Just idle curiosity, but assuming the tweeter is, for obvious reasons, very much anonymous, is it entirely certain that this stuff is a true and reliable account? I can’t fathom why a Gvmnt who are setting ambitious targets on outlawing ICE car sales would resent rail freight and actively want more lorries on the road network, that seems to make very little sense? The rest of it is entirely believable, regretfully.

Rail freight consumes substantial portions of the Network Grant and especially the capital budget. It is entirely possible that they would view the future of the railway as one focussed on passenger operations, indeed that would be consistent with the last sixty years of experience. Arguably the most successful railway systems in the UK (London Underground/DLR/etc) are pure passenger operations.

And its highly likely that the ICE ban will be abandoned, given that Germany has rendered the EU one into a dead letter.